Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind; it is not a matter of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees; it is a matter of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions; it is the freshness of the deep springs of life. Youth means a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity of the appetite, for adventure over the love of ease. This often exists in a man of sixty more than a body of twenty. Nobody grows old merely by a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals.
Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. Worry, fear, self-distrust bows the heart and turns the spirit back to dust.
Whether sixty or sixteen, there is in every human being's heart the lure of wonder, the unfailing child-like appetite of what's next, and the joy of the game of living. In the center of your heart and my heart there is a wireless station; so long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer, courage and power from men and from the Infinite, so long are you young.
When the aerials are down, and your spirit is covered with snows of cynicism and the ice of pessimism, then you are grown old, even at twenty, but as long as your aerials are up, to catch the waves of optimism, there is hope you may die young at eighty.
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青春，並非人生的某個時光；它是一種心靈狀態；也並非粉頰紅唇和體魄矯健，而是關於意念，是想像力的品質，是情感的朝氣，是人生深春的清新。 青春，是氣質上超越怯懦的勇氣，放棄舒適去開拓。這在六十歲的人可能比二十歲的小夥子身上更常見。沒有人僅僅由於時光的流逝而變老。 我們拋棄理想而變老。歲月可以在皮膚上留下皺紋，放棄熱情使靈魂佈滿皺紋。憂慮、恐懼、缺乏自信，使人心佝僂使精神蒙塵。
無論是六十歲或十六歲，每個人的心中都充滿著驚奇的誘惑，都對人生途中的歡樂，對未來事物懷著如孩子般無窮無盡的渴望。
在你我心中，有一個無線電台，只要它能不斷地從人們，從無限接收到美好、希望、歡欣、勇氣和力量的訊息，就能永遠年輕。一旦天線坍塌，你的心便會被冷嘲熱諷(玩世不恭)和悲觀失望的酷雪所覆蓋，你便衰老了—即使你才20歲。如果這無線電台始終矗立，捕捉着每個樂觀向上的浪潮，便能臨終於年輕的80歲。
